Missing Missouri at 6:27 p.m. in Paris...

There's this feeling welling up inside me that can only be described as gray.  If I had to dissect it, it would be made up of loneliness, homesickness and nostalgia.  There is a bittersweet longing that I possess.  It is beautiful yet dull, complex yet simple, so far and so unattainable.  I say gray because when I close my eyes, I see the gray streets of my city, met at the horizon by a gray and billowing sky.  In between both are specks of color.  They range from the brilliant - the red and gold and brown of the trees, the crisp white All-American house set off by deep burgandy brick and ivy green - to the dull spectrum of colors that make up billboards, chain-store fronts and moving traffic.  But gray is everywhere you look, the air is gray and charged with rain and the lit up interiors of ordinary suburban homes, nail salons, grocery stores and restaurants call out to you and your need of shelter. 

I can't stop thinking about college.  My professors, my homework, the classrooms, the chalkboards, the uncomfortable wooden desks, the odd combination of cleaning product odors and the scent of dust - these sensory memories create such warmth in my mind that they too draw me in, as though they too were shelter from the rain.  

I moved to Paris for this?  To feel homesick over what I used to consider my prison, a shithole, the last place on earth anyone should spend their time in?  My hometown - I keep forgetting that the difference between it and every other place on the planet is the word "home".  

Perhaps the soul grows weary after too much travelling.  When we travel to another country and our only visible form of identity is our passport, it's psychologically fatiguing.  But so is the fact that this gray that I long for, this image I wish to enter in to, is no longer real and no longer attainable.  I can travel back home, I can drive the same streets, I can even re-enroll in the college and go to the same classrooms.  

Knowing that the shining present can never compare to the soft glow of the past we have construed is enough to make you lonely.  

Art

     He had been dead for three years now. She couldn't shake it.  Maybe it was because she was overseas when it all happened.  She didn't go to the memorial service that the students held in his honor, she didn't hear anything about the funeral, she hadn't even spoken to him recently.  His life had become so disconnected from her own after graduation, as any healthy professor-student relationship does.  She sent and received emails sometimes.  They followed a few of the same blogs and commented on certain forums.  Since moving to Europe, their minimal interaction had become strictly virtual.

    Maggie met Dr. Steinman at Freshman enrollment.  He was sitting behind a squat table with the sign "English Majors" posted on it ; his left hand was gripping onto the thick, dark hair on top of his head, his large, square glasses pushed up to the bridge of his nose and a fat book drawn closely to his face.  She sat down in front of him, ready to get this over with as soon as possible with the most minimal amount of energy as possible.  His right wrist went limp, pulling the book downward with it, and revealing his face to her.  His mouth was slightly ajar and his eyes were wide as if she had fallen into the chair from the sky.

11:46 p.m.

     He looked English. He hadn't spoken a word to her or anyone else at the bar for that matter, so she couldn't be sure.  It was something to do with his neatly tailored suit, his slim tie, his slightly thinning hair. Yes, the hair, a dull lump of chesnut-colored curls that were too understyled to be American yet too neat and well-kept to be French.  He leaned into the counter as he reached for his wallet to tip the barman.  He then stood up straight, with an adgitated bounce, to put the wallet back.
    She looked at his polished leather shoes and wrote his life story for him. He was born in London, or its whereabouts, and he was probably the kind of man that would say "born and bred" when referring to his hometown. He grew up in a good home with a good family, and made good enough grades to go to some good business or law school. Let's say law.  The law firm that had employed him for the last four or five years broke the good news to him after a Christmas party ; there was an opening at the Paris branch for someone like him who had studied European law, someone who spoke a bit of French, someone young, unmarried, childless, uninhibited and willing to be uprooted and transferred into a foreign garden.  So they recommended him for the job and he thought, why not?  He imagined his new flat (because he'd call it that, now wouldn't he...) in Paris, some simple yet elegant space with a breathtaking view of the Eiffel tower.  He thought about going out to dinner and drinks at fabulously expensive restaurants with his future French collegues.  He'd meet a girl, he knew it, and she'd be so fascinating, so foreign, such an intellectual, so complicated, and he'd discover the city with her and, like so many couples before, be carried away by the romance of the place.  He'd go back to England for the holidays, and while having a pint with the lads...ah, she loved that phrase and mourned the fact that her American accent rendered it silly when speaking it ouloud...he'd say, it's crazy, but it's just become home, I think I'll be there for life.
    His name was probably Paul.
    Bernard had come back to the table with drinks and said something.  She responded while watching Paul order another beer.  He looked around him, nervous, embarrassed even, then raised the new pint to his lips, sipped, put it down and opened a newspaper.

Ritual

     She woke up late once again.  The night before, she promised herself this wouldn't happen.  Sleeping in only feels good if one's had a busy week and feels their body's need for rest, she thought.  Sleeping in only feels good if you consider waking at nine or ten to be sleeping in.
     It was noon and she ached.  Bernard rolled the first joint around ten in the evening, and things went the way they usually went.  A joint each while watching a downloaded movie on his computer, then at least one shared joint while they watched some episodes of whatever series their friends were buzzing about at the time.  She went to bed before her boyfriend, she always did.  There were nights when she wasn't tired, but he'd look at her during the end credits through a fresh cloud of smoke and say "Well, then," as if that meant "Off to bed young lady."
    He wasn't hiding anything from her, she knew that.  She knew because she'd check the internet history the next day while he took his morning shower.  There were no late night porn videos, no chatting.  He would watch her patter towards the bathroom to wash her face and roll another cigarette.  Then he'd watch her make her way, fresh-faced, towards the bedroom door, calling out "I'll be there in a minute."  Then he'd read his online articles, music mainly, some film.  After turning off the lights, shutting the windows and emptying the ashtrays, he'd climb into bed next to her.  She'd drowsily turn towards him for a series of goodnight kisses or possible sex, but it always ended in him setting his alarm for 8:30 and her rolling over vowing to get up at the same time as him.
    For two weeks in a row now, this didn't happen.  The waking up with the alarm thing.  He would hit snooze several times before throwing himself in the shower and she would lay sprawled across the bed, snuggled into the luxury of a jobless day, knowing that the only thing Bernard would say is that she could sleep as long as she wanted.

   How do couples become this predictable?  How many evenings and mornings does it take before every gesture and every word can be repeated so easily, with so little thought?  Gaelle removed the old tea bag from the day before putting a fresh one into the pot.  The water in the kettle was slowly coming to a boil but she didn't even remember putting it on the stove.